


Chain Reaction

by moolktea



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Demon Instincts, E rating is for future chapters, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Minor Violence, Slow Burn, nero propaganda, quick horny tho
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-12 23:55:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21484936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moolktea/pseuds/moolktea
Summary: After one too many acts of not-so-accidental insubordination, Nero finds himself promptly removed from his comfortable position in the Order of the Sword and saddled with an entirely unreasonable punishment.Said punishment, unfortunately, goes by the name of Dante, has spent the last eight years as a convict in the Order's maximum-security prison, and just so happens to be chained to Nero at all hours of the day.
Relationships: Dante/Nero (Devil May Cry)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 143





	Chain Reaction

**Author's Note:**

> SDFKLSJ to preface i should say that i went on a large and terrible Death Note binge which made me uncontrollably horny for the premise of dante and nero chained together  
this is chapter is mostly exposition/set-up for what will soon prove to be a badly disguised porn w minimal plot thank u
> 
> TY TO LUNA SDLKFJS for listening 2 my plot dump of absolute clowniness and reading it over i die

“So,  _ this  _ is what the good little church boys are into these days?”

Nero opts to ignore Dante at first, instead staring decidedly ahead of him and folding his arms over his chest. The motion elicits a soft rattling noise, from where the chain looped around his right wrist connects him to the biggest, most annoying problem that the Order of the Sword’s had to deal with in years.

Dante seems largely undeterred by Nero’s attempts to ignore him, pinching the length of chain with two of his fingers as he holds it up for inspection, his free hand scratching idly at the stubble clinging to his jaw. Nero hears the clinking of metal, and when he makes the deadly mistake of turning his head, Dante’s already settled himself directly into Nero’s personal space, grinning down at him with an infuriatingly smug tint to his features.

“Damn, you’re  _ tiny. _ Wonder why they stuck you with someone like me--seems pretty obvious that you couldn’t stop me from running off if you tried.”

Nero has many qualities, but patience with enormous bastards definitely isn’t one of them. The soles of his boots thump firmly against the ground as he swings his feet off of the desk he’d propped them on, the chain rattling as he properly straightens up to his fully seated height in order to glare properly at the man.

“I’m  _ stuck  _ with you because the Order’s run by ugly old assholes who think I’m the best fit for doing the jobs that literally no one else on the planet wants to do.”

He waves a hand towards Dante indicatively, the implication obvious in his words, but Dante doesn’t seem very bothered by the insult, his smirk sharpening as he raises a brow at him.

“Oh, trust me, kid. I’m something that  _ everyone  _ wants to do. Or be done by, if that’s your thing, and by the looks of you, I’m guessing that it definitely is.”

The man seems to know that he’s won this round from the way that Nero gapes silently at him, fishing around in his mind for some sort of comeback to that and trying to hide the telltale flush of his cheeks. He’s always been pale-skinned though, his blush more obvious on his complexion than anything else, and Dante chuckles as Nero furiously tugs his scarf upwards, hiding the rest of his face in it.

The nature of Dante’s banter leaves Nero a little more out of his depth than he’d like to admit, mostly due to his Fortunian upbringing. In all honesty, he hadn’t even realized the less than innocent implications of chaining a nineteen-year-old acolyte to a recently-freed criminal in his late thirties until Dante had taken the gleeful liberty of pointing it out.

“You sure know how to pick them, huh?” Nero hears Dante say, this time directed towards Nero’s superior.

Credo clenches his jaw, his grip on the hilt of his sword tightening dangerously as the full weight of his glare comes to rest upon Dante. His adopted brother isn’t any happier than Nero is about this situation--if anything, he’s even more dissatisfied with the outcome, but they both know that Credo couldn’t have done anything to change this if he’d tried.

“You should hold your tongue,” Credo warns Dante, and the obvious strain in the older man’s voice makes Nero wince.

While he definitely doesn’t regret the incident that had landed him on the Order’s probation list in the first place, he does feel bad about all the trouble he’s given Credo in the process of it. The man’s really one of the only people on Nero’s side, and he’d been the one to formally induct Nero into the Order in the first place, vouching for him against the direct disapproval of the higher ups.

It’s clear to the both of them that Credo’s reputation is at stake here--if Nero manages to fuck his probation up and get himself expelled from the Order for good, Credo’s the one who’ll be dealing with the fallout. 

Nero knows how hard his brother’s worked to get to this point, how diligently Credo had fought for every inch of the respect he now commands, and it’s for this reason that Nero hasn’t just broken the chain by force and shoved Dante’s insufferably smug face out the nearest window.

It’s a close thing though, especially when Dante lounges back in his chair and laces his hands behind his head, deliberately jerking Nero’s right arm closer to him with the motion. Nero finds himself momentarily unbalanced as the force of it carries him along, his head smacking gracelessly against Dante’s broad chest. A sharp glance upwards tells him that Credo’s already turned away from them, busying himself with looking over the paperwork related to Dante and Nero’s conjoined confinement, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by Dante in the least. 

“Whoops,” Dante says lightly, his tone betraying absolutely no hint of contrition whatsoever, and Nero cannot quite resist the urge to act upon his sudden and intense desire to shift his weight and kick Dante’s chair out from underneath him.

The man goes down with a resounding crash, but Nero barely has the time to savor the delight of his victory before Dante wraps the length of the chain around his thick forearm and tugs it downwards, bringing Nero down on top of him. He lets out a squawk of alarm as his face meets Dante’s chest for the second time in as many minutes, his left hand already curling into a fist as it prepares to meet Dante’s face.

Unfortunately, Dante reads the motion with a quicker mind than his normally idiotic behavior would suggest, using the advantage of his weight to flip them over. Nero feels another yank on his right arm before Dante uses the chain to shove his wrists upwards, pinning them flat against the ground. With little else to use as his leverage, Nero arches his back underneath the other, freeing his legs and wrapping them around Dante’s waist in an attempt to turn them around yet again, before the harsh sound of metal against metal and the sight of Credo’s sword embedded dangerously close to both of their heads puts an abrupt stop their fight.

Credo looks over them with something like badly repressed fury, and Nero swallows hard, automatically feeling himself duck his head with guilt.

“I will remind you once again, Nero, that the Order has been especially lenient in extending this opportunity of redemption to you. It would do you well to exert some discipline in this scenario and to ignore this criminal’s clear provocations. And  _ you--” _

The man’s brown eyes snap towards Dante’s face at a jarring speed, and Nero’s honestly afraid that his brother might be about to pop a vein from the way he’s staring Dante down.

“Remember that you are here by the grace of the Order’s pardon, and little else. Had you not proven yourself useful to our current investigation, you would have been left to fester in solitary confinement until the end of your days. Nero is your assigned handler for the duration of this, and as such, he is what stands between you and a future of continued imprisonment, and you  _ will  _ behave yourself around him.

“You two have been placed together for no less than fifteen minutes, and you have already been reduced to such base interactions-- _ control _ yourselves, or others will do so for you.”

There’s a long pause, in which Dante digests these words and Nero bites at his lip stubbornly, turning his gaze towards the ceiling above him. He shifts uncomfortably against the hard floor beneath them, well-aware of the way that Dante’s still got him pinned, but after a moment, he goes completely limp, tilting his head to look Credo in the eye.

“...sorry, Credo,” he mutters, his voice quiet but genuine. He presses experimentally up against Dante’s hands, the skin of his wrists pinching against the motion. “And would you get off already?”

Dante blinks down at him like he’s seeing him for the first time, and for a second, Nero swears he sees a flash of something more serious on Dante’s face, a distant, almost far-away look that he can’t read. Nero frowns, but before he can catch more of it, Dante’s features morph into an easy grin, and the other man releases him, cheerfully sitting up in a fluid motion.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry about that. Won’t do it again, Officer, you know how it is.”

From the thunderous look on Credo’s face, he very much does  _ not  _ know how it is, and Nero suspects that his brother has minimal desire to ever learn. Dante takes the icy reception in stride, letting out a soft chuckle as he gets to his feet, righting his chair and collapsing into it in an unfairly casual motion.

After a long pause, in which Nero belatedly realizes that both sets of eyes in the room are on him and awaiting his action, he flushes an even deeper pink and scrambles after Dante, dropping himself into his seat and averting his gaze.

Credo lifts a hand to his head, rubbing at his temples with an unnecessarily--in Nero’s opinion--extended sigh before firmly depositing a stack of papers in Nero’s lap. The stapled bundle flutters with the motion, and Nero barely manages to prevent it from sliding off of his legs altogether.

“It is clear that my extended presence here will be nothing but detrimental for my own health. As such, I will explain the general rules of your position to you and remove myself from the situation entirely for today.”

Dante tilts his head with interest, propping up on of his ankles on his thigh as he leans backwards, his arms hanging freely at his sides.

“The purpose of this arrangement is highly experimental. As you may or may not know, Nero, depending on how attentive you have been during the Order’s meetings, several of the Order’s artifacts, imbued with dangerous demonic power, have gone missing, and while we obviously cannot allow them to exist freely in public hands, we have little way of locating them on our own. Therefore…”

Credo’s gaze drifts towards Dante’s face, his lips pressing together tightly in displeasure at the width of Dante’s smirk.

“That’s where I come in, yeah? Seems like you can’t solve everything by praying to your God over there after all.”

Nero’s well-aware of the missing-artifact incident, if only because that particular meeting had been riddled with so much panicked movement and conversation that it’d been impossible to miss. The Dante development, though, had been an unpleasant surprise in its entirety, the other man’s involvement having come quite literally out of nowhere for Nero.

“Okay, and so what good are you?” he demands of Dante, a part of him admittedly in search of a way to wipe the self-aggrandizing look off of Dante’s face. “From what I’ve hear, you’ve been stuck in a cell by yourself for the past eight years. What would you know about anything?”

Dante gives him an appraising sort of look, raising a brow at him before looking inquiringly at Credo.

“You’re chaining me up to a kid who doesn’t even know what I’ve done? Guess you really couldn’t find anyone else to do it after all.” Dante stretches his arms upwards, the chain between them barely lax enough to avoid jerking Nero’s arms along as well. 

“I’m half-demon--it’s a pretty big deal, especially for the stuffy old purists you’ve got running this place, but that’s a story for another time. To full humans like you, there isn’t any way to tell the difference between a regular old object and a Devil Arm. But my demonic instincts pretty much go off like an alarm whenever there’s one around.”

“What, so you’re a glorified hunting dog? Don’t tell me I’m supposed to walk you around town all day.”

Credo coughs delicately, his posture stiffening in an indicative sort of way that Nero absolutely does not like.

“Well...essentially, yes,” Credo answers for him, which is enough to cast Nero into a special kind of despair. “In order to actually make use of Dante’s abilities, we must immerse him in the outside situation. Of course, given the nature of his background, he can hardly be trusted. He requires constant supervision, at all hours of the day.”

“So the council’s genius solution is  _ this?” _ Nero gives a dissatisfied shake of the chain, deliberately dragging Dante’s left arm downwards. “Might as well throw me into jail right next to this asshole--that’s basically what they’re trying to do, isn’t it? To lock me up?”

He hears Dante make an interested sort of noise to his right, probably wondering what Nero had done to lower himself so deeply in the Order’s estimation. He isn’t about to give the bastard any more ammunition against him, though, and he knows that Credo is equally unwilling to divulge unnecessary information to the man.

“The...timing of your separate incidents just happened to coincide. It was a convenient answer, if nothing else. Besides, the Order believes that being tasked with a responsibility of this nature will instill some kind of discipline in you, and it was indeed impossible for me to argue that you were lacking in that particular.”

There’s a tired note of resignation in Credo’s tone, and it’s perhaps this that prevents Nero from snapping back immediately. He huffs out a sigh instead, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he glares hard at the wall to his left. 

“Alright, well at least you know how to treat a guy. This place you’ve shut us up in is a hell of a lot better than some of my old houses.”

From what Nero’s heard, the building they’re sitting in--and going to be living alone in, for the indefinite future--was constructed by the Order some time ago, for the specific purpose of housing especially dangerous prisoners. 

Every room that isn’t their bedroom or bathroom has got its fair share of cameras and wiretaps nestled in the corners, and the walls are reinforced twice over with an Agnus-engineered kind of metal, effectively preventing any escape by force. There’s only one way out and one way in, through an elevator leading down to an underground opening, and the one-sided windows that block the outside world from looking in on their predicament reveal that the floor they’re confined on is too high up for one to jump out and come away unscathed.

Anyone  _ normal, _ that is.

Nero isn’t exactly too knowledgeable on how demon-human hybrids function, but if Dante possesses any amount of the enhanced abilities that Nero’s generally observed in the demons that the Order fights, a place like this isn’t going to be able to contain him. 

As if predicting Nero’s next objection, Dante straightens up, the motion catching Nero’s eye. With a slightly colder tint to the light blues of his eyes, Dante reaches up with his chained hand and yanks down the collar of his shirt, exposing a patch of red ink that Nero hadn’t seen before.

Nero narrows his eyes, leaning forwards for a closer look, his hand automatically moving to grip at the back of Dante’s chair in order to stabilize himself. At this angle, it’s easy enough to see what he’d first missed--right in the area where Dante’s collarbone starts to dip into his broad chest, the Order of the Sword emblem is tattooed in a dark red ink, glinting faintly with an unnatural light.

“What…?” Nero starts to ask, looking to Credo for the answers, because while he hasn’t paid very close attention to most of the Order’s regulations, he’s pretty sure that tattooing prisoners with their mark isn’t one of them.

If possible, Credo’s discomfort increases at the unspoken question, and Dante’s smirk turns unmistakably bitter.

“Your friends in high places--physical ones, I mean--put this little thing on me. No one said a word to me about what it does, of course, but I’m figuring that it’s doing its job of suppressing my demon side.”

Somehow, Nero finds himself helplessly reaching towards the mark, his fingers pressing up against Dante’s skin before he can think better of it. At the light contact, Dante tenses under his hand, but he doesn’t move away, studying Nero with suddenly serious eyes.

“Your demon side? Then...what? What does that do for you?”

Nero flicks his eyes upwards, and when he properly meets Dante’s gaze, the awareness of what he’s doing catches up to him abruptly. He jerks his hand quickly away, instead moving his fingers towards his scarf and nervously tugging at the fabric in an old habit. 

Dante shrugs, releasing his collar and settling back in his chair, but the sharpness in his expression doesn’t lessen in the slightest.

“Puts me on your level, more or less. Been a bad kid, so I got my usual toys taken away from me--enhanced senses, better healing, oh, and an alternate part of my entire being, really.”

Despite his less-than-amicable feelings towards Dante, something about that rubs Nero the wrong away, a part within him prickling uncomfortably against the thought. 

“There was no choice,” Credo chooses to explain, but there’s a note of reluctance in his voice as he looks calmly over Dante’s form. “He’s clearly a danger to Fortuna and all the innocents within it--in order to release him from prison, we were forced to take harsher methods of controlling him.”

There’s a weighted pause, but from the tension in Credo’s body, Nero suspects that the man has more to say on this matter, and it isn’t going to be something good.

“That being said...the mark possesses special qualities of its own. Simply put, it was constructed with  _ your  _ blood, Nero. I am not privy to the inner mechanisms of the magic, but our superiors were concerned that you would have some difficulties in keeping Dante in check. So, with this...he will be physically incapable of disobeying you, should you wish it.”

Nero’s still in the process of trying to wrap his head around the fact that the Order had apparently gotten a fresh sample of his blood without his knowledge or consent and had used it to  _ etch a fucking tattoo _ on a living person, but chances a look at Dante anyways, searching for the other’s reaction.

To his surprise--and mild concern--Dante looks largely unaffected by this new piece of information, his posture as relaxed and casual as ever, as if he hadn’t heard that the sigil engraved into his neck was capable of affecting his free will. Nero, in turn, isn’t quite so skilled at hiding his feelings, twisting around to glare up at his brother.

“Well, I  _ don’t  _ wish that! This blood magic thing didn’t come off as completely fucked up to any of you? We don’t need shit like that--I can handle him just fine without it!”

Credo, likely having expected Nero’s response, delivers an entirely too well-prepared answer in return, releasing his grip on the hilt of his sword and folding his arms over his chest.

“I opposed your involvement in this from the start, because I am all too aware of how trusting you tend to be. For all his juvenile behavior, Dante is  _ dangerous, _ and the Order does not trust him.”

They don’t trust Nero, either--his name goes unspoken by Credo, but Nero knows it to be the truth anyway. He’s here solely because this entire affair is meant to be a punishment for him, not because the Order really thinks he’s right for any sort of responsibility. 

In their defense, Nero can absolutely see why he doesn’t have much of a reputation with the rest of the Order, but it doesn’t stop the unpleasant twist in his gut at the implications of it all either. He can’t bring himself to meet Credo’s eyes, tightening his grip on the papers he’d been handed and staring determinedly down at them.

Credo shifts uncomfortably in place, making a neutral sounding noise in his throat as he comes closer, dropping a firm hand onto Nero’s shoulder. The look on the man’s face has somewhat soften, his features tinged with clear concern for Nero’s well-being, and Nero suddenly feels a sinking sensation of loneliness, a part of him unwilling to let Credo go just yet.

_ “I _ trust you, Nero,” Credo says quietly, slightly angling himself in a way that blocks Dante out of their conversation entirely. “This is certainly not an enviable task you have been given, but I know more than anyone how capable you are of accomplishing something you choose to place your focus on. So, focus on this.”

Nero swallows hard, pushing his reservations down in the face of Credo’s solemn gaze, instead dipping his head in a stiff sort of assent.

“Yeah. I got it, Credo,” he manages to get out, internally wincing at the unsteadiness of his own voice. “Don’t worry about me.”

Credo looks him over again, his grip on Nero’s shoulder tightening for a brief moment before he steps away.

“The rest of the details are located within those papers. If you have free time--and I expect that you will--it would do the two of you well to look them over.”

He folds his hands behind his back, turning away from them both and moving towards the elevator. Nero stands up automatically, walking forwards as far the chain will allow him, watching as Credo nods at him for a final time before he disappears altogether.

Nero feels his breath escape him in a soft sigh as the weight of the situation fully settles upon him, but he doesn’t have very much time to contemplate it before the rattle of the chain pulls him from his thoughts. 

Irritation builds rapidly within him as he turns back around to glare at Dante, but the man isn’t actually looking at him, his eyes oddly empty and his expression distant.

“Uh, you need something?” Nero tries, tugging pointedly on the chain, and it takes a few jerks before Dante actually looks at him.

In an instant, Dante’s usual grin slides back across his face, and he slides smoothly out of his chair and to his feet, walking around in a small circle and stretching out his muscles.

“Nah, it’s nothing. Officer Friendly over there just reminded me of someone, is all. So, kid--you wanna go for a tour of the house?”

Nero does not want to particularly go anywhere with this man, but Dante seizes the length of the chain between them in one of his hands, deliberately shortening it and using it to tug Nero along. Dante’s got a rather noticeable advantage in strength on him, and his motions leave Nero with no choice but to stumble after him with a yelp of surprise as his weight pitches him unsteadily forwards.

“Hey, watch it, old man!” Nero snaps, but his words do nothing to deter Dante’s motions as he nearly drags Nero through the sliding doors and into the main room of the complex.

Nero curses lowly under his breath, unable to conjure up a decent argument against Dante’s exploration of their new living quarters, and instead resigns himself to following along, mentally compiling a list of every regrettable life choice that’s led him up to this point.

On instinct, he turns his eyes upwards, sending out a desperate, silent plea to whatever entity above might be listening.

He hasn’t believed in a god for a while now, much less the one that the Order kept espousing with such fanatical devotion, but he’s still held onto a few of his old habits from his younger days.

From the looks of things, though, it’ll come in handy--he’s going to need a lot more than a little help with this particular problem, in the days to come.

* * *

Nero lets Dante haul him around for about another hour before he determines that something is clinically, fundamentally wrong with the man.

Dante is entirely too cheerful about their arrangement, first making a beeline for the fridge in the kitchen and popping it open, opening up the drawers and investigating the various contents within.

“Looks like they expect us to go shopping--although I guess they sure put a whole lot of effort into decorating this thing with fancy ornaments.”

“Dante, that’s a carrot.”

His correction goes entirely unheard by Dante, who tosses the vegetable back into the fridge with a note of disgust, perking up when he spots the line of bottles nestled in the bottom shelf. With little regard for Nero’s presence, Dante immediately twists around to snatch it up, popping off the cap with his bare hands.

“At least they keep their promises. Want some, kid?” Dante holds the bottle out to him, allowing Nero to read the label off of it. 

It’s a higher quality alcohol than he would have expected, especially given the Order’s general attitude to anything remotely resembling a vice, and Nero suspects that the free drinks were part of the deal they’d struck with Dante.

Which said a lot about the man’s character, really.

“I’m  _ nineteen.” _

“Hey, no one’s around to watch.”

“Yeah, except for the ten surveillance cameras they put in this room alone.”

Dante shrugs, either already aware of or just completely unbothered by this revelation, tipping the bottle back and draining its contents with alarming speed. Before Nero can even express his distaste, Dante wipes his mouth, kicks the fridge door closed, and easily drags Nero along into another room. 

It becomes increasingly obvious that Dante possesses the complete inability to keep quiet for longer than ten seconds, because he’s more than happy to fill the silences between Nero’s monosyllabic responses with endless chatter of his own. Dante doesn’t even really seem to be expecting Nero to answer at all, so Nero rapidly begins to tune the man out, leaving his body to follow Dante on autopilot while he turns his thoughts towards escape.

Out of all the things he prioritizes in his life, freedom is pretty high up on his list. Part of the reason why he hadn’t minded being on the Order’s shit list before was because he got to exist freely outside of their ranks, tasked with taking the solo jobs that no one else wanted because none of the officers or other soldiers really wanted to work with Nero.

It was and is a mutual feeling--Nero’s more than capable of handling things by himself, and he’s often found that having an annoying mosquito paired with him to constantly berate him for his “primitive tactics” and his “unholy desecration of Sparda’s sword-fighting style” and whatnot tended to be more of a hindrance than anything.

Nero had liked his life just fine the way it was before, living with Kyrie and Credo and ducking out on useless sermons, and he’s more than eager to return to that life as quickly as possible.

“Dante,” he says, abruptly cutting the man off in the middle of whatever meaningless sentence he’d been working on.

Dante, to his credit, silences himself immediately, raising a brow expectantly at Nero. He starts to take the opportunity to speak up, but cuts himself off with a grimace when he remembers that they’re still being watched. Nero knows he’s supposed to be on his best behavior for the duration of this, and he’s pretty sure that live footage of him arguing with the prisoner and plotting on how to take as many shortcuts through their mission as possible wouldn’t be too well-received by the Order.

He shakes his head silently before purposefully yanking on the chain in an nonverbal indication for Dante to follow, and he’s almost surprised when Dante goes along with it, even if the smirk on the other man’s face is impossible to miss. The look on Dante’s face grows slightly incredulous as Nero hauls him towards the bedroom, reining him inside and shutting the door firmly behind them.

“Finally letting loose now that your bosses aren’t around? I don’t blame you, really--people always tend to end up in places like these with me, one way or another.”

The implication of Dante’s words, unfortunately, hadn’t actually registered in Nero’s mind until Dante had given voice to them, and he drags his fingers through his bangs in an embarrassed habit, trying to glare properly at the man.

“It’s not like that! I just didn’t want to be watched anymore, that’s all. Here and the bathroom are the only two places where we’re getting any privacy--and I don’t mean for...for  _ that!” _

He more than expects Dante to follow up with another lewd remark, but the man’s smirk has faded slightly at the edges, a steely glint of interest flickering in his eyes. Dante tilts his head towards Nero, tucking his chained left hand into his pocket, his right hand still loosely holding the empty bottle at his side.

“What, so you wanted to talk? I can do that.”

Nero glances at Dante suspiciously, somewhat put-off by the man’s sudden cooperation, but presses forward anyway.

“Aren’t you getting a little too comfortable here? You’re still a prisoner, you know--it’s not like you’re any freer than you were before.”

Dante lets out a soft, almost derisive laugh as he glances at the bottle in his hand. “Trust me--even if they’re both prisons, there’s definitely a difference. As long as I’m ‘helping’ out with your organization’s problem, solitary confinement is a thing of the distant past. So you can’t really fault me for milking it for all it’s worth, yeah?”

Nero’s teeth sink into his lip as Dante confirms what he’d been starting to suspect--as far as Nero knows, Dante’s deal with the Order really only extends as far as the investigation does. Once they’ve used up everything Dante can offer, they’re fully intent on throwing him back into his usual cell, and Dante knows it. 

It’s in the man’s best interest, then, to stall for time, which is the exact opposite of what Nero wants.

A part of Nero is helplessly sympathetic to Dante’s cause--after so many years locked up in a one-room prison with little to no human contact, Nero wouldn’t exactly be excited to be going back any time soon. In general, the structure of the Order’s prison system isn’t exactly something that sits well with Nero, but he’s more than aware of the consequences of speaking out. 

A given, really, since he’s currently living out his consequence.

But for the most part, Dante is a stranger and Nero is miserable in this arrangement, and the faster he can make Dante cooperate with him, the more quickly he can go home.

He closes the distance between him and Dante, tipping his head up and slightly stretching upwards in an attempt to fix the gap in height as well, but his efforts on that end don’t do much with the way that his face is level with Dante’s chest. Dante, of course, takes note of this, entirely too much amusement curling at his lips as he looks down at Nero.

“Okay, well, the point of all this is for us to get the job done as quickly as possible, don’t you think? Maybe your old brain hasn’t figured it out yet, but this isn’t a vacation, and I don’t want to be stuck here with you!”

“Now that’s a shame,” Dante sighs, not sounding disappointed in the least. “I’m pretty fond of you, kid, all two inches of your tiny self. So why would I be in any rush to get rid of our bond?”

Dante removes his hand from his pocket and shakes the chain teasingly, leaning down slightly from where he stands in order to intrude even further on Nero’s personal space. Nero instinctively presses his hand against Dante’s chest, putting up a physical barrier between the two of them as he holds his glare.

“Well, you can’t just do nothing! They’ll definitely notice if you’re spending this free time they’re giving you on drinking beer and looking at your overly-inflated head in the bathroom mirror for twenty minutes at a time.”

He’s absolutely certain that the bathroom incident had been deliberately designed to test Nero’s patience as far as possible, but the fact that Dante had been capable of examining himself for such an extended duration of time spoke volumes of his ego--or perhaps just his level of assholery, really.

“Will they?” The teasing note in Dante’s tone darkens into something more unreadable, the lightness in his eyes turning cold. “Like I said, humans like you can’t sense the demonic power in the stuff we’re looking for. So, say we’re out on one of our little walk--how would any of you be able to tell if I’ve actually found something or not? If I just kept saying that there wasn’t anything out there, you’d have no choice but to believe me, yeah?”

There’s a certain truth in Dante’s words, and it’s evident to Nero that the other man isn’t exactly joking about this, either. Lying to Nero and to the rest of the Order would be the course of action that served Dante the best, and from what he’s come to know of the man in the two hours that they’ve known each other for, Dante’s moral compass points largely towards himself.

Dante’s words carry a promise of a future of indefinite imprisonment for Nero, and Nero already knows that he’d never be able to appeal to the Order on this. 

_ “What?” _ Nero hisses angrily, his hands curling into fists at his sides as he attempts to regain some semblance of footing in this conversation. “You can’t just do that, Dante.”

“Why not? What’s stopping me?”

The question hangs deliberately in the air, and Nero isn’t quite able to stop the way that his eyes stray towards the mark on Dante’s collarbone, at the patch of blood-red ink peeking out from behind Dante’s shirt. Dante seems to know exactly where he’s looking, the edges of his smile turning slightly cruel.

“Guess that’s the only way a kid like you can get someone to listen. Go ahead, then--let’s see how this magic of yours works.”

“I’m not going to use that!” Nero immediately protests, a sick sort of feeling twisting in his gut at the mere idea of it. He wants Dante to cooperate with him, but he’d rather stand here and argue at the brick wall of Dante’s head than forcibly override the man’s will with his own.

Dante doesn’t look very convinced by Nero’s emphatic claim, shaking his head with another bitter laugh.

“What, don’t tell me I just happened to get the one soldier with human decency? Now that’s a little too good to be true.”

Nero finds himself averting his gaze unconsciously, ducking his head under the intensity of Dante’s stare. He doesn’t like this new, hidden side of Dante that’s crept out now that they’re free of observation, and he feels like he’s treading on unstable ground, unsure of how to proceed.

“Fine--you can think what you want, but no matter what happens, I’m not doing that.”

He doubts that his words have any more effect than the last, but to his surprise, Dante seems to relax, turning away at an angle that masks his expression. 

“Sure,” Dante says with an easy shrug, before he abruptly smashes the glass bottle against the wall and grabs Nero by the arm, throwing him up against the wall.

Nero barely manages to turn his face to the side to avoid breaking his nose against the wall before he feels a firm weight slam against his back, his own right arm shoved up against the curve of his spine at an uncomfortable angle. He struggles to catch his breath, jerking violently underneath Dante, but Dante catches his left hand easily, the cold metal of the chain tingling against the skin of Nero’s wrists as Dante restrains him.

The chain loops itself several times around Nero’s arms, until he can’t move them at all, and then the links go taut as Dante’s hand tangles in Nero’s hair, pulling his head back. With his neck exposed, he can feel the tip of the broken, curved shard of glass in Dante’s right hand slide under his scarf to trace over the flutter of his pulse, the point digging into his skin as Nero swallows hard.

“What about now?” Dante asks, his voice deadly calm in a way that sends a sharp chill down Nero’s spine. There’s a hint of a growl lacing its way into the edges of Dante’s voice, and Nero suddenly thinks he sees a flash of red creeping into the blue of Dante’s eyes. 

“You told me yourself--no one’s watching this room, so your friends can’t come running over to help you, yeah? So, what? You going to drop the little high-and-mighty act or not?”

Nero feels his own heart beating frantically against his sore ribs, but he only grits his teeth and gives another tug at the chains around his arms, looking for a way to free himself. The glass digs deeper into his neck at the motion, a tiny cut drawing blood to the surface, but Dante doesn’t move to finish the job, merely keeping himself pressed up against Nero’s back.

They stay like that for what feels like an entirely too long moment, with Dante awaiting Nero’s reaction and Nero stubbornly holding his tongue. Then Dante lets out a sharp exhale, the noise barely bordering on a chuckle as he drops his hand, pulling away from Nero and allowing the chain to unwind from his wrists.

“Huh. You really are something, then. Lucky me.”

Nero waits until his wrists are freed before he turns around, rubbing at his neck to alleviate the strain that Dante had put on his muscles before he balls his left hand up and attempts to punch Dante in the face.

It doesn’t quite work the way he’d intended, mostly because Dante casually steps to the side, allowing Nero to overextend his balance and fall forward. Before Nero can actually hit the ground, though, he feels Dante’s large hands slide underneath him, catching him in a way that easily lets Dante smirk down at him in his full glory.

“What is  _ wrong  _ with you?” Nero demands, an angry flush rising in his cheeks as he realizes how hopelessly outclassed Dante has him. He isn’t about to admit that, though, instead choosing to jerk himself out of Dante’s grip and smooth out the wrinkles in his clothing.

“Nothing that wasn’t already right,” Dante responds, in typical Dante fashion, making his answer as traditionally irritating as possible.

He scratches at the stubble on his jaw then, assessing Nero in a new light.

“Look, kid. You’re pretty interesting, so maybe I will help you out after all. Don’t get me wrong, I’m gonna tell you now--no matter what happens, there is no way that this can go that ends with me going back to that cell. But I’ll leave your pretty face alone at the end of it, so you might as well sit back and enjoy the ride.”

Nero narrows his eyes at Dante’s bold claim, peering a little more closely at the man. Dante practically emanates confidence in his posture and his words, not even a trace of doubt coloring his actions. He’s absolutely certain, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that whatever definitely insane plan he’s got is going to work, and Nero thinks that if he were any other soldier, he’d have reported Dante to the higher-ups by now. Despite the front he’s put up all this time, Dante’s actually got a mind in that overly-large head of his, and a dangerous one, at that.

But in all honesty, Nero doesn’t think he quite cares about what Dante does at the end of their arrangement. He doesn’t know what capital crime landed Dante in their prison in the first place, but as far as Nero can tell, the man isn’t too keen on taking innocent lives. 

The small cut under his scarf stings in a reminder of how easily Dante could have killed him by now, and he instinctively presses his fingers against it, the muscles in his throat tightening with his nervous swallow.

“Why are you telling me this?” He asks carefully, unsure of why Dante’s entrusting him with something so presumably illegal.

Dante doesn’t answer immediately, his gaze heavy against the top of Nero’s head.

“Not sure, honestly. Seems like you’ve got shit to hide from the Order, too. You wouldn’t have brought me into this room otherwise, and I’m pretty sure they aren’t in the habit of locking model citizens up with known convicts. Point is, I’m sensing you aren’t too eager to go and run your mouth to the rest of them.”

Dante’s surprisingly accurate analysis of his character unnerves Nero in a way that he struggles to hide, ducking his face into his scarf and twisting the rings on his left hand around his fingers to stall for time. 

“What are you going to do when you get out of here, then?” 

“Hey, we just met, kid. I can’t go spilling my whole life story to you now. Maybe after I buy you a couple of dinners?”

Nero drags his hand down his face with mild frustration at the nature of Dante’s clear deflection, but he recognizes the futility of pursuing the current topic all the same. 

“I  _ mean,  _ are you going to hurt anyone? If you get loose and end up back in prison for something even worse, then I can’t just let you go.”

His question seems to actually catch Dante off-guard, the other man temporarily dropping his front and his expression turning almost impressed.

“You sure you’re cut out for the soldier life, kid? Seems to me like you spend a lot more time worrying about others than you should,” Dante shakes his head, but there’s an almost-gentle hint to his words. “Trust me—I won’t be taking any human lives. Mostly I plan to enjoy my hard-earned freedom and pick up some of my lost shit.”

Nero knows he’s confirming Credo’s worst fears here by actively engaging in conversation with and placing his trust in a criminal. He has no evidence that Dante will stay true to his promise, but Nero feels helplessly compelled to believe him anyway, a part of him entirely open and willing to give Dante a chance.

“So, then you’re saying...you’ll work with me on this, as long as I stay out of the way of whatever highly improbable escape plan you’re making?”

“Sounds about right. Unless you want in? It’d be real easy to steal a tiny thing like you away.”

Nero scowls at the jab at his size, but chooses to ignore it in favor of extending his chained hand towards Dante.

“I’ll stay here, thanks--but I can agree to that. We’ll get this over with as fast as possible, and then we never see each other again, right? Sounds like a better deal than the one you cut with the Order, really.”

Dante smirks as he grasps Nero’s hand, a firm pressure against Nero’s skin, and Nero can’t help but feel like he’s on the edge of making an incredibly bad decision. 

“Yeah,” he answers, squeezing Nero’s hand lightly in his own, an electric tingle crawling up Nero’s spine at the contact.

“You got a deal, kid.”

**Author's Note:**

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